The Black Cat Ending
by xXSoulmistXx
Summary: How I think The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe could of ended.This was a Language Arts assignment form last year.We had to write a ending to a open-ended story so I chose The Black Cat.


Oh! what a dreary sky hung above my head on the dreadful day. This day was the day when I was to breathe my last. The day the police officers came to my home they had found the corpse of my wife in the wall of my cellar. The hideous beast caused the sound from the wall the police dismantled. I had found myself tackled to the floor and arrested by the officers. It had taken three days for them to decide what death I would suffer for my gruesome actions. For those three days I sat in my cell listening, listening to the many sounds that foreshadowed only my death. I heard the voices of officials arguing over my sentence of death. Despite all the more agonizing deaths, they chose the hangman. They had found my actions appalling but not as gruesome as killing a group of people. Even though I was to face death soon I had no regrets of my actions. My wife had sided with the beast which tormented me so much.

True, it was an appalling action I took to murder my own wife. But why would I let her live when she saved that loathsome beast? Once again I will say that I had no regrets. The beast still haunts my senses. Wherever I turned I felt like the hideous beast was watching me with deep dreadful eyes gleaming with success of my capture.

The three nights before my death I started to hear a noise. Actually, it was more than one noise, it was three appalling noises. The first noise I heard was on the first night and sounded of nearly silent footsteps. Yet no other prisoner seemed to hear. With every step I heard I felt as if a sharp blade of ice was pushed into my spine sending pain and coldness through every inch of my body. This made me slightly frantic for this seemed to be the sound of the footsteps of death walking to me.

The second noise I heard on the second night and was a low scream of pure triumph. It went on for hours and hours. It did not stop the whole entire night. I had just sat there awake, listening to the dreadful noise. It was the same scream I had heard from the beast which had caused me to end up here but this time it mocked me. The loathsome beast had known that I would soon breath my last. It mocked my hideous murder with the scream as if saying "You tried to kill me but it is you who shall be killed". Of course the scream did not actually say that but that is the tone I had heard it.

The third and last noise I heard was on the night before my death and was of a beating. It was a quite fast beating I heard. It had a sense of fear and dread to it. The pace of the beating constantly would pick up. It even got louder, louder, and louder. I did soon figure out that it was the beating of my heart. I had then noticed by the beating how much fear I was facing for I knew that the day that had awaited me was the day that I would die. The beating of my heart had hurt as well. It had felt like it was coated in a thick layer of sharp ice. Every beat it took it felt like it was being stabbed by the ice that surrounded it. The pain I had noticed was that of a hidden guilt.

The day of my execution was as I said in the beginning dreary and dreadful. I had sat in my cell for many hours until the guards took me into the town hall where the hangman stood waiting to end my life. They had said I had one hour before I died and I would be ready for death for they put the rope around my neck so I could not escape. For that hour I had simply stood there listening to the angry screams of town's people. They shouted things like "trash of the town" and "hideous murderer". Those names never fazed me. I had watched as the town's people talked to each other about how gruesome it was for me to kill my kind uncomplaining wife. They had all been full of rage at me. I still had not been affected by their rage. They screamed at me as well as calling names.

It had been fifty minutes and nothing had changed from when I had arrived at the hangman. People still were screaming at me and were ready to see my death. I watched almost bored now. The same names they had called me before were still being used. I had scanned the crowd to see all the people who had came to see my death. Then something had caught my eye.

The sight that I had seen had made my eyes widen in full terror and disbelief. My whole body had frozen up in pure terror. There had sat two black shapes. One was fully black and one was black with a large patch of white on the chest. I had known that both were the beasts. They had joined together to come and watch my death! They were the ones who had lead me to my murderous actions and had lead me to die! I had screamed in anger at the beasts. "Leave you hideous beasts you have gotten what you have seen out! I am going to die there is nothing you have left to do to me! Is that not what you had wished for the whole entire time to see me die!" I had caused all the towns people to go into a shocked silence and look at me. I had soon found myself weeping. "Why you beasts why must you have made me like you have!" I had shouted up to the dreadfully gray skies above my head. "Why!" I had screamed again.

I had looked then again at the beasts to see that they were not two but one. The second cat was in fact Pluto who had came to haunt me for killing him the first time! He had came and gotten his revenge on me and he did it well. I had found myself screaming at the beast again. "You got your revenge now go and leave now! Will you not be happy to you are sure that I am dead!" I had screamed at the beast. It had just looked at me with content eyes.

"Stop it you hideous beast!" I had screamed at the beast once again. "I shall live no longer and you will have fully avenged your self!" The crowd had backed up and looked at me as if they had been afraid I could have killed them somehow. I had continued screaming and screaming. The hideous beast still had looked me with nothing showing of its emotion but triumph. "Be gone!" I had still screamed at the beast. Nothing that I had screamed would make the beast leave it had simply stood there with mocking eyes. I had slung my head around in the rope screaming trying to kill myself at that moment but nothing would work. I had not been able to escape the beast's glare. I had screamed in agony over and over. Then a sound had started from the steeples and I had looked up at the dark gray sky. The bells in the steeples were ringing foretelling that the next hour had arrived. I had whipped my head over to the executioner who had stood still looking at me. I had waited for him to take action and kill me but he had done nothing. Anger and hope had filled inside me trying to fight off the despair that had grown in me. I screamed at the executioner. "Hearken! At the sound of the bells from the high fog surrounded steeples!" I had screamed out to the executioner. "The sound of them marks the hour I had before I die! Now kill me now if you are going to!" I had screamed and then that had marked the end of my life.


End file.
